vanjac / voxel-editor

N-Space: a mobile app for building 3D interactive worlds

N-Space

A mobile app for building 3D interactive worlds. This is a work in progress.

• Google Play
• iOS App Store
• Video tutorials
• Donate to support development

Features

• Sculpt indoor/outdoor 3D environments. It uses a voxel sculpting interface inspired by the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker, which is easy to use and very efficient for building complex spaces.
• Paint surfaces with a selection of over 100 built-in materials/overlays, or import your own from your photos library.
• Use the Bevel tool to create complex shapes including rounded edges and stair steps.
• Use "substances" to build dynamic worlds with moving objects, water, triggers, and physics.
• Simplified component system similar to Unity, and an extensive logic system for wiring up complex game logic. You can even build very simple "AI."
• Customize the sky, lighting, and fog.
• Import your own sound effects / music.
• Experience your creations from a first person perspective. Make a game or just an interesting environment to explore.
• Interactive tutorials and demos guide you through the interface and more advanced features of the app.
• World files can be sent to/from other apps.

Screenshots

Using the app

The app opens to a list of "worlds" that you have created. Tap "New" to create a new world. Tap a world to open it in the Editor. Tap the menu button next to a world to access additional options, including sharing the worlds as .nspace files. You can open these files in N-Space from another app, like an email attachment or downloaded file.

N-Space has built-in documentation and tutorials, which you can access through the overflow () menu, by tapping Help.

Building the app yourself

The app has been tested with Unity 2020.3.X on Android and iOS. There is little platform-specific code (only for importing/exporting files). Most of the user interface requires touch input and will not work with a mouse, so you will need to use the Unity Remote App, or build for Android directly.

The repository does not come with textures from Poliigon, FreePBR, 3dtextures, and Genetica. You can purchase/download them yourself - look in the folders inside Assets/GameAssets for a list of .meta files which correspond to the missing textures. It is also possible to test N-Space without the textures at all. Materials will lack texture, but you can paint the walls with colors instead.

The app has four scenes:

• Menu/menuScene: The file selection menu
• VoxelEditor/editScene: The Editor interface. If you open this scene directly without first choosing a file, it will look for a file called mapsave.
• Game/playScene: The gameplay interface. Again, without choosing a file it will look for mapsave.
• Menu/fileReceiveScene: This scene will launch if you try to open a world file from another app using N-Space. This only works on Android.

Build Environment Setup

These notes are mostly for me, but you can read them too.

• iOS: install Xcode
• Install latest release of Unity 2020, with build tools for Android/iOS.
• Clone repo. Don't open in Unity yet!!
• Optional: Download/copy textures from Poliigon, FreePBR, 3dtextures, and Genetica (see above)
• Open project in Unity, and switch platform to Android/iOS
• Open Project Settings > Editor and switch Unity Remote device to Android
• Android: open Player settings and browse for the keystore location.
• iOS: download certificate from Apple and install, get private key and install

More info

MIT License

See credits.txt for sources of assets and libraries.

Contact me:

For questions / feedback / bug reports please email me

voxel-editor's Issues

Shadows are bad

They should probably be disabled. They actually only seem to show up in the Unity Editor.

Paint eyedropper

Paint Panel would have an eyedropper icon at the top to select another face to copy its paint. Face Select Panel similar to the Entity Select Panel. Tapping a face should immediately copy the paint to the previously selected faces and switch back to the paint panel. Back button to cancel.

Prevent losing the map by panning

It shouldn't be possible to pan so far you can no longer find the map.

Make an icon

Improve Target GUI

Maybe show directions for each of the 6 options.

Mouse locked after exiting game

Reset Material Select Panel scroll when switching to Color/None tab

Most behaviors don't work on the player

They should either be fixed, or not an option for the player.

Substance templates with default materials

Allow substance templates to define a material which they will be created with.

Game always uses default skybox

Map load error handling

Move slower in air

More reliable autosave

Try to do tests to determine how reliable saving is. Maybe we need to autosave periodically while using the editor (in a way that doesn't freeze the app for too long).

New file menu interface

Options for each map:

• Play
• Delete
• Rename
• Copy
• Share

Select through X-Ray

There needs to be a way to select things behind substances with X-Ray. But there also needs to be a way to select substances with X-Ray, to turn it off.

#90 and #91 are two ways to do this.

Borders between skybox faces are visible

The skybox reflection is not quite right.

Scrolling Type Picker Panel is difficult

Move Axes are hard to grab

Make them longer, and make the grabbable region wider.

Recent paint list

List of recent paints in Paint Panel. Row of small thumbnails at the top. Only saved for the current session (not saved in file). Paint is added when panel is closed, even if it wasn't changed.

Color picker for overlays doesn't fit in PaintGUI

It's slightly too tall, and there's flickering when you move the sliders.

Prevent making map so large the app crashes

Make Scroll region more intuitive

• Very small thumb (not grabbable)
• Shadows at top/bottom

Improve game control UI

Make it look better

Mouse control doesn't work

Skybox reflection has low color depth

Targeted behaviors

When a behavior is added, there should be an option to have it not affect its own entity, but instead another specific entity. Another option would allow affecting specifically the entity that "activated" the sensor.

Behaviors added to activator entities should first check if the entity matches the behavior rule.

Add some new backgrounds for GUI elements

• Button On + Active (done!)
• Toggle (checkbox) Active (done!)
• Slider thumb Active
• Text box Active

No ambient light after switching scenes

Issues with fence overlays on some faces

Come up with a better name than Voxel Editor

Think about phrases related to:

• Space (as in empty space)
• Construct / Build
• Architecture
• Worlds
• Sculpt

Select all with tag

Option in the overflow menu to select all entities (including player) with a certain tag. Stored selection would be preserved but Add selection would be cleared first.

Tag Panel: larger buttons

Prevent camera clipping through ceiling

If map is empty, don't save

Edit multiple selected entities

Different set of tags?

Clone substances

Properties panel would have a button to create a new substance which is identical to the selected one. This would open the Create Substance panel.

Sometimes property values are too large for the Properties Panel

This happens especially with properties that reference another substance (the word "Substance" is long). Everything in the list expands horizontally, but is cut off by the edge of the panel.

Move Behavior should block movement in other directions

If both Physics and a Move Behavior are enabled, movement in other directions should be blocked. This would include disabling gravity.

Use merged panel for Filter GUI

Selected on/off change for InputThreshold inputs is hard to see when colored Blue

Sliders are very hard to grab

Double-tapping jump button should only cause single jump

Speed up UpdateVoxel

This will improve load time and maybe adjusting large groups of faces. Maybe would improve #56

In game, merge voxels into single mesh

All wall voxels would be part of one mesh, and all voxels in a substance would be part of one mesh. Individual Voxel objects would still be created but not given meshes (and maybe not stored in the Voxel Array).

Lower player width

Player should fit through 2x1 hallway?

Make interface easily visible on any background

It's hard to see on light backgrounds.

Reset properties panel scroll when selecting a different entity

Delete substances

Properties panel would have a button to delete all voxels of the substance.

Eventually this should also have a temporary undo option. (#99)

Move axes take 1 frame to update size

Also sometimes one of the axes doesn't update until it's moved